


This Is Not the End

by anr



Category: Child's Play
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mix of maybe's and what-if's and did-you-hear's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Not the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnieD (scaramouche)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/gifts).



> Request: a story about Andy as an adult and how, despite his good moral compass, he'd cope with the trauma he's suffered in his childhood.

**FADE OUT**

Before they get off the ride, he kneels down in front of Tyler and looks him in the eye. "It was a midget, okay? An evil, evil little man."

Tyler's crying again, or maybe still. He hiccups. "But --"

"A _midget_," he repeats, shaking Tyler a little. "Say it!"

"A -- a -- a midget, but, _Andy_ \--"

"No buts." He gets up again and looks around for a way down, keeping his hand on Tyler's shoulder. "It was a midget and that's all."

That's all.  


* * *

The police take him in for questioning and for two days he tells the same story, over and over, and not even having his history spread across the table in front of him will make him change a single word.

_There was a midget. He tried to kill me and my friends. He did kill some. He fell into the fan trying to hurt Tyler._ Full stop. End of story. And, "can I go back to the Academy now?"

The detective pushes away from the table and walks towards the only door in the room, leaving behind a photograph of Aunt Maggie, bloody and broken on the roof of a car. "Soon," he says.

When the door locks behind him, Andy turns the photo over.  


* * *

He worries about Tyler and Kristen and what they might be saying. He doesn't worry about the rest of the cadets.

There's no such thing as possessed dolls who can walk, talk _and_ kill, and anyone who thinks otherwise usually doesn't think so for very long once the psychologists are done helping them. Andy knows this for a fact; the mental health system has been helping him for years.

The most rational explanation for what everyone thinks they saw is that they saw a little man.

"I'm free to go?"

The detective closes his file. "Witnesses corroborate your story. A male of small stature -- approximately four feet tall -- with blonde hair and blue eyes was seen by several of your class mates at the Academy, and at least two people at the fair. Since there's no physical evidence tying you to the deaths that have occurred, we're releasing you back into the care of the Academy."

He knows better than to say, _I told you so_, but he thinks it.  


* * *

He's sent back to the Academy with two policemen, Officers Matthews and O'Neill, who have both been given the task of watching him until he either proves the rumours true and kills someone, or until his midget attacker is caught and charged. (The remains found in the haunted house were mostly plastic, probably parts of the ride itself, and, while there was some blood and flesh, there was not enough to suggest anyone actually died there. Considering the number of times Chucky has come back from the dead, this rationalisation doesn't bother Andy too much.)

Kristen's still in the hospital, he learns, but Tyler's here, and as soon as he can he searches him out.

"You okay, kid?"

Tyler's in his room, sitting on the floor beside his bed, knees drawn up to his chest. "I've been having bad dreams," he says, sniffling a little.

"Yeah." He lies, "they'll go away eventually."

Tyler nods and wipes his nose on his sleeve. "He was a bad, bad, _bad_ man, Andy."

Andy nods. "Yeah. It was."  


* * *

**INTERMISSION**

After, the other cadets and instructors avoid him like the plague, whispering dozens of different theories and half-truths to themselves until what really happened is lost in a mix of maybe's and what-if's and did-you-hear's. Someone digs up a newspaper article from the last time, complete with a blurry picture of him getting into a police car, and copies of it spread like wildfire. The story that lasts the longest is that he's crazy (_c'mon, dude, he was playing with _dolls_; enough said, you know?_) and that someone, somewhere, was crazy enough to try and make his craziness come true (_that nutjob midget was totally just yanking his chain_). Since it's the closest they'll ever come to the real truth, he doesn't bother to deny it.

Kristen never comes back to the Academy, but she calls him once to explain why not, to talk about what really happened that night, and as much as he hates himself for it, he tells her he doesn't know what she's talking about. She doesn't call again.

Tyler doesn't quite fall in with the rest of the cadets, but neither does he seek out Andy after awhile. Andy hears, sometimes, that he still has nightmares, but even those whispers gradually fade away.

His police escorts remain for a month full time, then another six weeks part time, before they're removed. He speaks with the detective looking after the case monthly at first, then randomly, but the detective never comes back with any new leads and Andy knows he's off the hook, at least for now.

He doubts it will last.  


* * *

**FADE IN**

The day he graduates from the Academy, he enlists in the US Army. He's sent to Fort Benning in Georgia for basic training, and ends up staying on for his advanced individual training in the 2nd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment's Sniper School, where he puts his last two years of practice on the Academy's shooting range to good use.

By Spring 2002, he's seven thousand miles away from the States, his childhood, and (he prays) Chucky, fighting the Taliban in the Shahi-Kot Valley. In a fucked up kind of a way, he thinks it might be the safest place he's ever been.

He voluntarily stays for three tours.  


* * *

**FLASHBACK**

"Barclay! Hey, Barclay!"

Without bothering to stop eating, Andrew raises a hand and lets Mason find him shovelling something that might be lamb into his mouth.

"Dude, where you been? I've been looking for you all over."

Swallowing, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Dancing; what's it look like?"

Mason makes a gagging noise. "How can you eat that shit?"

"Easy." Reaching for his canteen, he washes out his mouth and spits. "My mouth opens, it goes in, I swallow."

The gagging continues.

Looking up, Andrew eyes the Specialist. "You want something?"

"Got something more like it. Friedrich's girl sent him a care package from home."

Friedrich's girl must have her local postman on speed dial, considering how much mail the PFC gets. Unimpressed, Andrew shrugs. "And?"

Mason grins. "_And_ we got ourselves an actual, bona-fide _movie_. C'mon!"  


* * *

The movie's already started by the time they find the others in the rec tent, and Andrew finds a place at the back where he can just make out the computer screen. Apparently it's a Christmas movie of some kind, because he can see a Santa Claus walking through the snow.

"Here it comes!" says someone down the front, and a half-dozen other voices _shhh_ him at once.

A few seconds after that, his lunch is splattering all over his boots.  


* * *

That night, he misses his target. Twice. And it's the first time something like that's happened since he got to this godforsaken continent. When he finally gets back to the Base, he almost puts those missed bullets between the blond-haired Private Wilson's big baby blue eyes.

He's on a transport heading back to the States forty-eight hours later.  


* * *

**CREDITS**

He figures he has three choices.

One: tell the Army the real truth as to why he started to flip out, and end up in the psychiatric ward of some military hospital.

Two: tell the Army nothing, go AWOL, make his way to California, and then put a bullet into every Hollywood hotshot who thought it would be a fucking fantastic idea to splash his urban legend of a childhood all over the silver screen.

Three: lie, and finally take some of his accrued leave.  


* * *

Chicago looks pretty much the same as he remembers.

The apartment building he and his mom lived in is still there; he recognises the outside from the crime scene photos of Aunt Maggie's body. He waits for a while to see if any cars are going to park near the corner, just like somebody did that night, but nobody ever stops and he eventually works out that the street's a No Parking zone now. He doesn't bother the people currently living in their old apartment -- anything he's already forgotten about that place is better left lost.

The place Chucky once took him to -- Eddie's place -- is long gone, a somewhat new, thirty-unit apartment complex in its place.

He doesn't bother trying to remember any of his foster addresses.  


* * *

He finds his mother not in a nice two-bedroom apartment overlooking Lake Michigan (like he'd maybe dreamed), nor in the psych ward of some government-run institution (like he'd mostly expected).

Instead he finds her in the Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, off Archer Road, which just goes to show that someone, somewhere, has a fucked up sense of humour.

She died from pneumonia, the year after Chucky's visit to the Academy, and her burial was paid for by the city; he doesn't bother finding out anything more.  


* * *

The airport is crowded and noisy, the plane full of civilians who look way too happy to be normal. The attendant smiles at him as he leaves the plane. "Enjoy your time in California, Sir."

He smiles back, all teeth, and touches the photograph of Jennifer Tilly in his pocket. "Thank you."

This time, he won't miss.  


* * *

  


The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/387595.html>


End file.
